Saint Pain (Zombie Ascension Book 3) (13 page)

Impossible. How could Traverse know? Maybe Bill Bailey was working with him all along and had given him the information. Father Joe couldn’t believe that he had unknowingly caused yesterday’s slaughter.

But it made sense. Father Joe had been selfish with his need to go out and be a tough guy every day, running around and beating up zombies with his bare hands. His selfishness had already caused people to lose their lives in the past.

If he blamed himself, all would be lost. Traverse would break him, defeat him if he allowed the doubt to creep in.

Father Joe felt the cool perspiration on his forehead. The humidity in the church stifled his breath, and he felt like he’d been dipped in a pool of his own sweat. His black clothes were soaked through, and he hurt in a thousand places.

“You got what you came here for,” Father Joe said. “I’m all yours. Bell’s about to ring, time for round three.”

He couldn’t differentiate between delirium and faith.

Traverse broke his ribs. Both arms. Shattered his ankles. Cracked his jaw.

Father Joe was impressed with himself for taking so much punishment before passing out. Before he faded, he thought it wonderful that Vega had a chance. Traverse was alive, and he was in Detroit. If she knew, if only she knew.

VINCENT

Vega didn’t say anything while she packed her bag.

Women didn’t leave him—he left them. But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? Almost a different world. Maybe it was a different world, and he was a different person. Ruthless, unforgiving, greedy. Powerful, in charge. A man of respect. A man who gave orders and made demands that were carried through. A man who ordered that people die. A man with more than one house, more than one operation, more than one woman.

There was only one woman now.

And she was leaving. Packing guns and water and crackers and canned vegetables, stuffing it all into a backpack.

What should he say? Accusations came to Vincent’s mind. What could she be blamed for? Why would he want her to stay? Did he want her to stay?

There were no words. There was nothing to say from the man whose words meant life or death to people on the street. A man whose kingdom had disappeared into the dark, devoured by the dead. By ghosts. By walking ghosts.

“Take a cell phone,” he said.

She didn’t answer him.

“Why?” he asked.

He asked her why because he was supposed to.

He asked her why because it was the right thing to do.

She didn’t look at him. She hadn’t looked at him since the attack.

“You want me to beg you to stay,” he said.

“Go ahead,” Vega said while stuffing her pack full of supplies.

“Please stay.”

“That’s a lot of begging. Very emotional. I’m compelled to stay.”

There was more for him to say, but he didn’t know how to do it. He forgot how to talk.

“You’re not coming back,” he said.

She stopped for a moment and pretended to stare at the bag.

“I get it,” he said. “They would have called this shit PTSD. Would have been sitting in rooms with shrinks. Would have been put on meds. Maybe kicked out of the service. Hell, I got kicked out for being
right
in the head. They keep the crazies on the field sometimes.”

She took a deep breath.

“There ain’t none of that left,” he said. “No army or nothing. Nobody to tell us we’re crazy or sane. Nobody to tell us we’re right or wrong. And everyone wants to be told. They want to be told what’s white and what’s black. They want someone to be in charge of this.”

“Is this your attempt to get me to stay?”

“No. You’re leaving. I know you’re leaving.”

“I think I’m supposed to be pissed you’re not trying harder to convince me.”

“Convince you of what? You know what’s best for you. I’m not going to fight to keep you trapped in here. In this cage.”

“Nice to see how much you give a shit.”

Vincent laughed. “Okay. I get it. You want another argument. You want me to fight with you. This is the shit I never did. I never needed anyone to tell me what I think and what I feel is right. I let women walk out all the time. If I need to convince them—”

“It’s not about convincing, it’s about fighting. It’s about fighting for something you care about. It’s about not giving up.”

He didn’t spend his days thinking about what he did wrong or what he could do right. He did what would work; he did what he needed to do because he knew the people in power made their own rules as they went along, and so he made his own rules.

He made up his rules, and he lost it all. His crew. His women. His wealth. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference. He was stuck here where he started, in the ghetto, but he was surrounded by guns and anger.

“I couldn’t pick up a gun,” he said.

“I know.”

“I wanted to. I kept thinking of reasons not to. I kept thinking of reasons why I shouldn’t do anything.”

She finally looked up from the bag, and he saw the tears in her eyes.

“I have to do this. I want to apologize, but I…”

“Yeah.”

She slumped into a chair and wiped her eyes. “Father Joe is out there. I know he could be anywhere, and I don’t have a lead. And… I’m afraid of those things, and they’ll always be part of my life.”

Vincent sat down across from Vega. He should comfort her, wrap his arms around her, bring her close. Try to get her into bed again, strip her down, let their bodies talk. But the idea didn’t seem real.

“I want to be with you,” he said. “I’ll never stop thinking about you. If I was next to you, I wouldn’t stop thinking about you. Worrying about you. I’d get myself killed for you.”

“But you didn’t do anything when they came here for us.”

Of course, she was right. Mortality wasn’t the issue, but guilt was. They had never lived normal lives, because their version of normal involved violence and bloodshed. After everything they had seen, they lived on the fringes of a warzone, and the war could come to them at any time. Still, he didn’t protect her. How could he protect her outside of their house full of guns?

He didn’t want the violence anymore. It was all he could do to pretend like everything was fine, that the past hadn’t affected him. Being with her was the escape. Making her laugh was going to heal him. More than anything, he needed her damnation, because compared to her, he was very less damaged. That’s what he told himself. She needed him. He protected her. He had a purpose.

“I thought it was over,” she said. “I thought we would just sit here and waste away. They were supposed to be rotting, falling apart. But they came here on purpose. Father Joe said Mina was linked to them, that she was still out there. He said she wouldn’t come for us, like she could direct them.”

Mina had been a strange woman. But when he thought about the church where he met her and Traverse the first time, he thought about Shanna. About the girl he could have saved if he tried. If he hadn’t run back to his guns.

Griggs had been right about too many things. The bastard was probably dead now, and his gun was proof enough. That former homicide detective knew what it took to stay alive. He had the balls to keep himself in check, and keep others in check.

“If you find Traverse, you’re still not coming back,” Vincent said.

“You’re right. I’m not coming back.”

Vega stood and walked to him, then sat on his lap. There was a tenderness in her; she wanted to be cared about, and she wanted to care, but she was afraid of getting burned. She had wanted to save a little girl she knew nothing about, and it hurt to fail. She told him about the partners she lost, and it hurt. She was beautiful, and her existence was something poetic, as if she could be two different women, and she wished that she could be one.

“I never said I didn’t want you with me,” she said.

It felt wrong to touch her. He could taint her, corrupt her.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he said. “I can put the tough guy aside and tell you that I feel for you. I want to be with you. I could say I don’t deserve you, but the truth is I don’t know what I deserve. I don’t even want to apologize to you. I don’t feel anything. Not a damn thing.”

Their eyes didn’t meet. They both stared at the pack with her supplies.

“Shells for the magnum,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I got something for you. Saving it for a special occasion.”

“Special occasion?”

There was no telling what that special occasion might have been, but he really was trying to save it. They weren’t supposed to be out there fighting zombies, and giving it to her was like admitting they were going to out there again, shooting and running.

A long time ago, when he was a high school hoodlum, he tried to give a girl he liked a ring. He had picked it out at JC Penny’s at Eastland Mall after saving up several of his McDonald’s paychecks to buy it. Turned out she just wanted to be friends, and that was the last time he ever bought a gift for a girl and cared whether or not they would like it. Since then, there had been many gifts to many girls, but never with much sentiment.

When was the last time he had ever felt nervous like this? Yeah, nervous. He was just giving Vega a gift, nothing more. Still, he hoped she would like it. He hoped it would protect her, keep her safe.

The large black case was heavy, and he set it down on the kitchen table to a show of Vega’s wide eyes and a whistle through her teeth.

“Jewelry never comes in a suitcase that big,” she said.

When he cracked it open, Vincent was confident she stopped breathing altogether.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit.” Vega gently lifted the Bushmaster ACR rifle out of the case. “I’ve played with some nice hardware in my time, but a fully-modified ACR has to be at the top of the list.” She put the gun up to her chin, one of her hands testing the forward handgrip, her gaze trained through the scope sight. “The flashlight is a nice touch, too. And the suppressor is outright gaudy. You really do know how to treat a lady.”

Vincent could feel the blood rush to his cheeks, and he looked away.

“You sure you don’t want Patrick’s gun as a trade?” she asked.

“Keep it. I ain’t going anywhere. Funny thing is, the sword is missing. You remember that sword you found, the one you used on that girl at Selfridge? It’s gone.”

“Useless, anyway.”

“I know. Still.”

Vega’s lips curled inward, and she sniffled while slowly placing the gun back into the case.

“We had a good run,” she said.

“You’re going to find him.”

“I know it.”

They didn’t speak again. He gave her the ammunition, and she walked out of the house. There was nothing else to say.

MINA

Mina had thought she had escaped both life and death. She had believed herself victorious over evil; she might be cursed with a consciousness that would dwell forever in the realm of nightmare, but the world would not have to put up with her anymore. People could heal and rebuild. Jim Traverse could no longer manipulate her to satisfy his narcissism.

Now her head was crowded again with the voices and memories of the dead, and a new presence had invaded her mind and threatened to take over. A presence that could not understand the hellish power that Jim wanted to wield through control over this body.

The only way to stop Jim was to get involved again; to fight for control over the body that an evil power had somehow created when Jim inserted the Rose microchip into the dead body of a fresh corpse.

Mina had to figure out where the real world was and where the nightmare began.  She had to take control; she was the only one who could stop Jim.

Thankfully, Rose fought her own battle with nightmare and memory. The poor woman didn’t know exactly who she was or who she had been. Mina had to be brave now, had to finish what she accidentally started.

She was in her body again, but she was always in her body. In her nightmares, she was in her body. There had to be a way to figure out if she really was in the real world.

Good luck, you dumb whore,
the voice of Patrick Griggs was in her head, but she knew it wasn’t actually Patrick. It was the nameless demon, the demon that could be anybody and nobody.

Just like in the movies Daddy used to watch, demons resorted to silly name calling when they were desperate.

Mina ran her fingers through her red hair and was comforted by its texture. She recognized where she was because she had seen it through Rose, when the girl had temporarily taken control over the new body. This was an old, abandoned factory. Dark and grungy, a place that smelled like old blood and masculine sweat.

She couldn’t think of a way to figure out if she was in the real world. It shouldn’t be possible that she could return to her body; Father Joe had destroyed it. It shouldn’t be possible that the dead walked the earth. It shouldn’t be possible that Rose was nothing more than a personality on a microchip. It shouldn’t be possible that hell was inside of her mind. It shouldn’t be possible that zombies were created when she ate a man while filming a porno, and then someone watched the video and became a zombie.

Reality was just as insane as she was.

Kill Jim. That was the only way.

Only the crazies can save the world,
the Griggs-demon said.
That’s your theory? Maybe you’re still at Eloise Fields dreaming this whole thing. Maybe you’ve always been just another nutcase in a nuthouse. Maybe I’m not real.

“Shut up,” Mina said aloud.

Mina felt stiff and awkward, as if he body wasn’t hers at all. This version of herself had been created when the demon-Rose fusion overpowered the body of a woman named Linda. This wasn’t really Mina’s body to begin with.

There needed to be a plan, and she needed a weapon. She didn’t know where Jim was, but he believed he had won; he would assume that Rose had complete control over this body, and Mina could easily fool him. Killing him would be easy.

She remembered the taste of Patrick’s flesh when she ate him. Jim might taste differently; she had no desire, no hunger, for human flesh, but she couldn’t use a gun or any other weapon. Eating him was her best option.

He would never expect it.

It was best to wait for him in the dark corners of the Packard Plant where he had left her. She didn’t need to explore his dark fortress; a quick scan of Linda’s memory revealed that Jim had decorated this place with all sorts of macabre displays, and she had no desire to see what Jim created with his murder-art.

Waiting might not have been the smartest thing she could do: she found herself sinking into the suffering memories of the dead, thousands of voices screaming or whispering their final thoughts before they were brutally murdered at the hands of the undead.

What she saw made it worse.

A horde of zombies was on the move, awakening from deep sleep and filled with malicious intent. Rose’s presence had disrupted everything Mina had done, unraveling the fragile peace she managed to create. All over the world, the slumbering dead were on the move. Rose’s hatred for the living pushed them forward.

In Detroit, a neighborhood was under attack. She saw Vega and Vincent struggle with zombies, and Mina did everything in her power to regain command, to slip inside the dead and pause their assault.

But it was no use.

Because you’re not in control at all,
the demon said, and its mad laughter followed.

There had to be another way. She couldn’t let Rose and Jim kill everyone and have their way. Mina could stop them. Mina could stop it all from happening. There didn’t have to be so much slaughter.

In order to gain control of the undead again, she would have to find a way to get Rose out of her mind.

She could destroy this body completely. She might be trapped in her own consciousness forever with Rose, but it was worth it. If she destroyed the microchip Jim had inserted inside the brain, then Rose might be gone.

Jim would still be alive. Maybe he would find another way. If she didn’t make sure Jim was dead, destroying herself was pointless. She might be able to regain control of the undead with Rose out of the picture, and attack Jim with zombies, but there was so much she didn’t know about her power and its limitations. She had a chance to kill Jim now, and she had to take it.

Mina was proud of herself. She was coming up with a plan all on her own. It might not be the best plan, but she was trying. Father Joe would be happy with her. He might run his fingers through her hair, pat her on the head, offer his friendly smile. It would be nice to see him again. He was the best thing that ever happened to her.

If only she could find a dead person who knew something about her.

Her mind worked like a computer search engine; she had watched Patrick use the internet to look at porn so he could teach her positions and methods, and a single word or image could be used to retrieve all sorts of information. There was so much she could know, so much she could do; this power was extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. If Rose submitted to Jim’s will, the Artist would end up with the power of a god at his disposal.

I know exactly what I’m doing.

She heard the voice in her head and knew it was not the demon. Knowledge flooded her brain, along with a name. She knew that Jim knew it, and Rose knew it, and someone named Sutter knew it.

Colonel Richards.

Murdered by Jim inside a transport plane and left to rot there, left to exist as a zombie probably because Jim wanted some kind of poetic victory only he could understand.

Mina delved into the dead colonel’s memory and found herself confronting Doctor Desjardins, a scientist she had encountered in another nightmare. She knew this man was responsible for her upbringing; he had nurtured her as a baby and helped select the madman who would become her father. Desjardins was responsible for her existence and for her curse.

Through the colonel’s eyes, she saw Desjardins rush toward him. They were both on a stairwell in a military complex. A forbidden place, a place nobody knew about. Colonel Richards’ mind was open to her, and she knew everything that he knew. But this moment resonated. She caught glimpses of his experience in Egypt, but this moment was more arresting than any other. A moment filled with confusion and terror.

“You have to wait,” Desjardins shouted at him. “Wait. Stop. Listen to me, just listen to me for one moment.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Richards said.

“You have to make time, before we don’t have it anymore. Please, just wait. Hear me out.”

“Wait? Everything we’ve worked for is happening right now. Every piece is ready. Everything’s in place. What’s there to debate?”

“It’s not that simple. I realize this is going to sound crazy, but we have to stop it. This isn’t what I thought it was.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Colonel, you just need to listen to me…”

“I am listening. You stopped me, and I’m standing here.”

“Everything is just fucked. The Rose project, Traverse, all of it. We don’t have control. We don’t have any control, and it’s all going to spin out of our hands before we know it.”

Richards laughed. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing. You’ve spent your entire life doing this, and now you want to back out? You were part of the reason why I was in Egypt in the first place. You’ve forgotten what you’re dealing with.”

“No. That’s the problem. I haven’t forgotten. I’ve sacrificed everything to get to this point. I have everything I could ever want. My father, and my father before him, and everyone else in my family has worked for this project as far back as we can know. I know how this is going to sound. I know it.”

“Listen to yourself. You’re babbling. Are you done?”

“We won’t be able to control what’s going to happen next. All the power we’ve ever wanted isn’t going to be what we thought it was going to be.”

Richards laughed again. “Okay then. Go home. See your wife. Fuck your mistress. Take a trip to Hawaii until it blows over. You’re thinking about this too much. You’re getting cold feet. You’ve worked hard. Go home, and take a break.”

The colonel turned his back to Desjardins.

The scientist put a hand on the colonel’s shoulder and stopped him.

“Don’t go in there,” Desjardins said. “Let’s think this through. We have too many variables in play.”

Richards licked his lips and then gritted his teeth. A long time ago, he wanted to erase Desjardins from the program and get someone else. Desjardins knew too much. Even if he had proven valuable, like all of his ancestors, the scientist was off. Desjardins didn’t appreciate their goals. Now that the conclusion was at hand, the scientist wasn’t necessary anymore.

The colonel pushed Desjardins against the wall and held him there. “You don’t really know what’s happening, do you? Eternity is mine. I’m the one who came back from Egypt. I’m the one chosen to make this happen. You’re just a goddamn puppet. Do you understand? We’ve already dropped people into ground zero. Detroit’s already a mess. It’s happening. Right now, it’s happening. You have no idea what I’ve gone through for this. I was chosen. I was picked.”

He searched the doctor’s eyes for understanding, but the panicked expression he found there confirmed that Richards didn’t need him anymore. Desjardins was more of a liability. He couldn’t be trusted.

“Who’s watching the video?” Desjardins asked.

“What does it matter?”

“Who’s watching it?”

Richards smiled. The smile told the story Desjardins feared most: the President of the United States was watching the video.

“No,” Desjardins said.

“Yes. You guessed it.”

“This is madness.”

“Bullshit, Doc. I’m a soldier. Always have been. War really is hell, and war is coming. The last war, and I’m going to win it.”

“You don’t know what’s going to happen with the video. You don’t know.”

“I know enough.”

Richards released him. Killing this imbecile would be a waste of his time. Traverse was waiting for him, and destiny beckoned.

“You’ve got seven minutes,” Richards said. “One way or the other, you’re gone after that.”

Richards turned again and left him on the steps. The doctor’s wild shouts followed the colonel up, but he ignored everything. He didn’t have time for the silly man; victory was at hand.

Mina saw these images of the past, and dreaded what Richards would face next. She knew exactly what he would see. A part of her was curious because she had never seen what Richards was about to see. His sense of terror and loathing were absolute; she understood his helplessness because she had felt that way her whole life whenever she dreamed.

Richards had no idea what was going to happen next, but Mina knew. She knew because this was a memory. She felt his ego swell when he handed his identification to someone at a security desk and entered the room in which the president was watching a porno film. The president was watching Mina eat a man.

As the colonel walked down a long, narrow corridor, Mina thought how sad it was that Detroit had been left for dead as soon as everything started. The colonel was in a security bunker, deep below ground, a place where the president had been secreted away in preparation for an event of near-apocalyptic proportions. He was being briefed now on a mission he never would have guessed at, a disaster that had been thousands of years in the making.

Richards heard the screams echoing down the corridor, but he thought it was just coming from the video. He had no idea that the screams were ahead of him. He had no idea that he had underestimated Jim Traverse, and his entire plan would come to nothing bur sorrow and ruin for millions of people. He had no idea that the president and his advisors were the ones screaming; the possibility that something could go wrong was beyond him. In his mind, he had won. It was over.